An artspoon full of sugar chalk

Two weeks ago was the 4th birthday of my son and he asked for a rocket themed party. The reason he likes rockets is a big poster by Hervé which we bought for him in the Comic Museum of Brussels 3 years ago and which hangs in his room. I’m happy it’s not a fireman party he wanted and so I threw myself into party preparations with enthusiasm. That means I spent several nights at Pinterest, just to buy some paper plates with rockets on it.

So far, his or his friends birthday parties went like this: Kids were sent to the kids room to play while parents were having their own party in the living room. Very relaxed and just the way I like it. Unfortunately there was some crafting activity at the last birthday he was invited to. The results were pretty cool, but now he wanted me to craft rockets with his guests. Uhm…

Space drawings with sugar chalk

A few days before the birthday party I had the idea to draw a colorful space scenery – with sugar chalk on black paper. Clever as I am, I decided to test that beforehand. (always do that before you want kids to do a specific activity)

What is sugar chalk? It’s just plain chalk (like school chalk) which was put into sugar walked. That way the color gets more intensive and the chalk is easier to handle on paper. It’s not so dusty due to the moisture and sticks better to the paper. But anyhow, you should fixate the picture in the end, e.g. with hair spray.

It’s really easy to make your own sugar chalk!

Ingredients für sugar chalk: water, sugar, chalk. That’s it!

Recipe for sugar chalk (magic chalk)

1 jar with wide opening

100ml water

1 teaspoon sugar

Fill the jat with water, add sugar, stirr. In case you take more water, just add more sugar as well. I took the triple portion on the picture. Then you add the chalk and wait for a couple of minutes. Done 🙂 When you have enough jars, you should consider taking different jars for each color, so the chalk won’t get dirty. But it’s not a big problem, don’t worry. When you’re done drawing, you can put the chalk back into the sugar water and keep it for some time(but not too long). But make sure it’s a chalk of good quality, so it won’t dissolve.

Draw on dark surfaces, like black paper.

A jar of sugar chalk

By the way: I had problems as the color fixated on surfaces where I only wanted to have it temporarily oder not at all (like the kids table) and I couldn’t get rid of the stains at once. So be careful!

Ready to get started

My little artist was very motivated, but – as always – just to test the different effects and results. He’s more of an explorer type… So he draw a “color casserole” 🙂 It wasn’t as productive as I expected, but the baby was with us and distracted him. He didn’t get into the flow and stopped drawing after only a quarter of an hour.

Artists at work.Space made with sugar chalk

Oh. By the way. The chalk is not edible and I recommend to keep babies from tasting the chalk. Because… well… it tastes like sugar and my baby liked it and would’nt stop eating… (yup, I expect to be nominated for the “mom of the year” award anytime soon).

I hope you’ll have lots of fun drawing!

Martina

PS: I didn’t offer this activity at the birthday party. I sticked to my opinion that they should keep themseves busy without the help of adults. It was a great party 🙂